Trump Plans to Shrink, Reorganize CIA, Other Intel Agencies

Deals on the exact nature of the changes are still being sorted out, but President-elect Donald Trump reportedly plans to revamp multiple US intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, with a primary goal of shrinking them considerably.

Those familiar with the plans say they believe that the US intelligence community is “completely politicized,” and that the various intelligence agencies need to be “slimmed down,” and restructured in how they interact.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence appears to be a particular target, with Trump apparently believing that the office is driving efforts by the outgoing Democratic administration to accuse Russia of “hacking the election,” trying to portray Trump’s election as the result of interference.

Despite the FBI being the ones initially ordered to investigate the accusations, the CIA is also seen playing a significant role in this narrative, coming out after the election to claim they had concluded that Russia had deliberately tried to influence the outcome of the US election in favor of Trump.

In not accepting the accusations, Democrats are now presenting Trump as “siding with Russia” or deliberately disrespecting the intelligence community. The Trump team appears to believe this whole effort is the result of the politicization of the intelligence community, and that it needs considerable efforts to resolve.

State Department is a given. He did not select T-Rex just because he has good relationship with Russia. He is also a top executive of one of the globe’s largest company. This is exactly what is needed. An overview of the agency, its various functions, and reorganization plan. Then, the staffing — to insure that the President’s strategies are understood and carried out. The problems are massive in State Department, as under Secretary Clinton, the functions of diplomats were often compromised. The top diplomat often had a role of a trouble maker in a country, meeting with opposition and other groups that were vying for US financial help, for a political service. It will take a long time to return to the role of a diplomat that has good relations with a country in which he/she serves, to insure that in hard times solutions can be found, and relationships mended. Over years, the quality of US diplomacy has descended into the likes of Ambassador to Ukraine, that was fixing who will take over the government once the legitimately elected president has been ousted. A despicable fall from grace.

Rick, I agree this is excellent news. However, the CIA is a vile
organization engaged in drug trafficking, money laundering,
regime change, child sex slavery, and a host of other despicable
activities. Assassination is nothing for these murdering bastards.

Trump should proceed with caution dealing in this cesspool.
Jack Kennedy (had) similar ambitions. Anyway, I do support
Trump’s endeavor, and wish him well.

Hahahaha! Nice to have a little comedy for a change to break with the serious stuff. 9/10’s of the problem in the US is it’s being all wrapped up in how the sky fairy created us 6000 years ago, or something like that. That is, I think about 4000 years after the earth was created. Yup, fu–ing with the education system is something only murican conservatives could thunk up!

Gotta be wondering how the libertarians can up the ante on this one. Oh, I know, I know. Make it a child’s right to decide on whether it will go to skool!!

“Oh, I know, I know. Make it a child’s right to decide on whether it will go to skool!!”

Worked fine with my kids. When they wanted to try the government version, they did. When they realized how bad it was, they switched to homeschooling. The 15-year-old has been teaching himself trig lately. The 18-year-old is deciding which colleges might be worthy of her enrollment.

Yeah, vouchers are a scheme to eventually create a two tiered system of private vs public schools where public schools are starved of funds. As a supporter of free public education, I was disappointed with that pick, but I didn’t know she is Erik Prince’s sister. Thanks for the info.

1) There is not, nor can there ever be, any such thing as “free public education.” At least not until and unless you can talk construction companies into putting up energy-self-sustaining buildings pro bono, and find teachers and administrators who are willing to forego paychecks and benefits, and so forth. “Free” is not an option. The only question is “who pays.”

2) I oppose vouchers too, but you have the reason 180 degrees reversed from reality. Vouchers won’t come without strings. They will just turn putatively “private” schools into “public” schools.

1) Free to the child. Pretty obvious, I’d say. Of course they rely on tax revenue, usually property tax. One of the few essentially Georgian taxes.
2) Hey, great for you! At least you are consistent. My observation has been that most libertarians and conservatives are fans of vouchers or unrestricted charters, anything to weaken traditional public schools. Please work on your friends to drop their lobbying for such free handouts to the rich.

It certainly isn’t free to the child, who has to spend 6-8 hours per day working on-site for it and then take work home to boot. The mid-19th-century Prussian system for turning out cogs who can be relied on to obey their masters’ orders and not do too much thinking hasn’t weathered very well.

If you don’t like it, reform it. You offer no alternative for the millions of kids with illiterate or neglectful parents who aren’t capable of teaching their kids even the 3Rs or paying someone else to do so.

I assume you do not agree with a Robert Gibbs type excuse that kids “should have a far more responsible father,” yet I hear no suggestion from libertarians and “conservatives” as to how we guarantee such kids have the opportunity to get a basic education. It’s clear that in our greed based society where charitable donations have been decreasing, volunteerism is not going to do the job.

I am sure that you know that the Secret Service and the CIA are two different agencies. The Secret Service is charged by law to protect the President and Vice President. I suspect that only the Attorney General (the SS is a law enforcement agency) can excuse the SS. President Trump who is in the executive branch cannot do this.

Of course I know that SS and CIA are separate, but there is some evidence that some people within the SS were complicit in the JFK assassination. Read JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters by James W. Douglass.

I didn’t mean that Trump intends to exclude SS from protecting him. What I meant is that he is not relying exclusively on SS but is using his own security detail to augment what they do.

The sad thing is, some elements around the globe surely are seriously contemplating it. Good thing at least “Assassin’s Creed” Israel is Trump’s closest buddy for now. Possibly a tactical move in that light? Security is a bit tighter these days but weapons and explosives are more advanced with a larger, darker black market. Lets face it, if some state party or related cabal really wants a president to be bygones, whatever the price, it’s a done deal. Perhaps the fear of market collapse will save the Donald? One coinage to rule them all, not?

The biggest problem with CIA (possibly others too) is that many functions are privatized. When Lindsay Graham declared that Trump should listen to CIA, as they are the sworn agents that work in the interest of the country, he was not really right. If a person has been hired by a company that is on contract with CIA, the employee can be sworn to anything, but his employer is the final arbiter of employee suitability. It is easy to see how the wishes of corporate supervisors can become the findings of an agent, or else, it is not going to be difficult down the road to find objections to his/her performance. It is really crooked.
I am really glad that this is happening. This is what executives do — they can spot difficulties in any organization, and streamline it, aligning it to its purpose. What a difference from Hillary Clinton’s period when she ordered her diplomats in UN to collect DNA samples from other diplomats. Wikileaks published that a while ago.

Wow… some of the best news I’ve heard in a long time. I don’t expect to like everything Trump does, but it’s a great sign that much more of what the government does may happen in the light of day, so we’ll at least know what to oppose or applaud.

Release the full 6700 page torture report without redactions. That will knock the CIA back on its heels. Then start the “slimming” process by sending Cheney, Addington, Yoo, Bybee, and Jose Rodriguez and his crew of torturers to the Hague.

“Kill the chicken to scare the monkey”. I’ve been waiting for Trump to “make an example of someone”. When Congress sees that President Trump has the stones to play hardball with the killer elite, they may reassess the wisdom of being more “compliant”.

Valerie Plame was a CIA officer who was outed by Cheney’s “Scooter” Libby because she was right on Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. Obviously there exist very competent and honest CIA officers. The problem seems to arise when the government does not like their reports.

And now with his belligerent positions on China and other foreign adventures where he’s just ‘bomb the hell out of them’, it’s starting to look like Hillary your favourite hawk would have been just as good a choice!

Those tweets do not imply Trump has “caved.” They don’t even really say he doesn’t believe Assange that the source was not a state actor. He simply said he believes we need intelligence. He also said recently that the CIA has been politicized. I don’t trust him any more than you do. Lots of contradictions. But Hillary was consistently pro-war. We’re just going to have to wait and see what he does.

And now that I’ve read all the comments below, I see that everybody is buying into Trump’s scam unanimously. The perfect patsies!

It’s going to be relatively easy now for the CIA and Trump to find a facesaver for Trump’s vanity and that will be the end of any of this nonsense he’s been vomiting about friendly relations with Russia. All Trump is asking for is an admission that he didn’t win with Russia’s help. LOL

You have a problem. Perhaps a few problems. First — listen carefully to the news.
Nobody has actually examined DNC servers. Nobody. Not FBI nor CIA — nobody. No forensic performed. Just some meetings. The only tests were run by a private company — hope you remember the feeble findings based on some cyrrilic writing found. That narrows it down — so many countries use the alphabeth. But also, remember at the time most oeople dismissed the findings as not serious. Russia would hardly leave the calling card.

How convenient for Democrats — to actually avoid real scrutiny by authorized agencies, and now act like nobody really requested!!!! If they were so sure, based on one compny’s look that they were onto something serious — they would not wait for “request” by those agencies — but would be screaming to get them in. The shame of it all is that all these agencies got caught up in using some generic “private and public sector evidence” to make their decisions!!

I think that the biggest shame is on Republicans that ended up shilling for Hillary and defended her as if she is the victim here, while all the time she demmured, and did not exactly rush to have those servers checked out. I have never before seen such idiocy –perhaps the yellowcake takes cake.

We always knew intelligence was politicized for a long time now. But never has it been used to delegitimize elected president. It is natural that services have been politicized — as many of their functions sre privatized. Even summary report for the President is prepared by a private entity. Do you think thar Jeff Bezzos is not political, or that the WaPo he owns is not politicized? What is then Jeff Bezzos doing with a mulions of dollars in contract with CIA.

I am not understanding those who are not applauding the placement of CIA agents where they belong –doing intelligence work in the countries they specialize in.
The lack of information about real world is big part of the problem — we end up relying on ideological constructs from the past, and lack real human intelligence.

As for Russia bashing and its leader — this is by now an embarrasment globally. There are very few leaders globally that are as respected as Putin. His statemanship has been on display now for a while, and fhe respect for him has only grown. We are looking as immature college kids that need a safe space –with crayons to describe our fears.

What to say of McCain? Now I see why Tump chose to diminish his hero status. If one wants to be respected –one has to earn it. McCain does not understand.
Here are examples where he screwed up, and then wants to take his revenge –on Russia. First, he pointedly stepped up to the anti-Russia plate in 2008. On the day all eyes were on the opening of Olympic games in Beijing, 8.8.2008 — McCain talked an American product, President of Georgia, Saakasvili, to attack South Ossetia, or to be precise, Russian peacekeepers stationed there. The plan actually was rather devious — the population of South Ossetia was to be pushed to Russian North Ossetia — and so remove population of different language out of the country. Many Russian peacekeepers were killed, and population pushed to the north via the only tunnel crossing to Russian population. This cost Georgia the war. As the population crammed the pass, Georgia was unable to mine the tunnel. Russia attacked Georgia’s military all across the country using aviation first, and then using the tunnel brought ground forces. The outcome? Georgia lost both South Ossetia and Abkhazia — had most of its country occupied, most military assets destroyed — and its reputation damaged. Both Saaskavili snd McCain were in a state of shock, not believing that “international community” just did nothing. Like what? Start a nuclear war over provinces to which Georgia had no real claim to start with? McCain was arrogant and boneheaded. His personal commandeering of the situation was a disaster to US reputation.

But he was not done. In Ukraine he became buddy to a well known Nazi keader –and took nice pictures with him. I guess he wanted to get back at Russia — by whatever means. If that meant helping Obama and Victoria Nuland organize the coup — he was game? What could go wrong? He already saw in his mind’s eye NATO in Crimea, and him presiding over new Yalta. Well –of all the plans of mice and McCain… Crimea went back to Russia, and two regions are in rebellion against coup. It can be much worse. Now, many more regions with Russian majorities are itching to seceede. Harkhov, Dnyepropetrovsk, Zaporozye, Mycolayev, Herson and Odessa. Now, after money being poured into the bottomless pit by EU and US — what is to do? McCain wa ts a war with Russia.
Some adults please step in, and spare him any more embarrasment and any more foreign policy disasters for US. we just do not have any more money for failed warriors to play with. Russia has been very restrained, but if Ukraine keeps up hoping for military win — it will lise out on gas contract to Turkey. Such is life and competition. Without it, Ukraine may turn out lights — and anyone who wants it can takebit for the asking.

Hope you understand why we need agents snd proffessionals in the field. To prevent ideological know it alls imposing their non existent knowledge.

What the hell are you on about Bianca. I only had to read your first paragraph to know that you don’t understand me. Trump’s caved and who gives a fu-k who hacked what? Trump has already said that he doesn’t believe what Assange says. Get it yet?

Bianca, so now that I’ve read your whole blurb I see that you’re thinking that I believe that Russia/Putin did the hacking. In truth, I’m with Rand Paul on that when he said to Matthews tonight on MSNBC that all countries hack each other and that included the US. It’s dead on the truth and as I’ve said a few times lately, the US has hacked Russia’s electons and everything else to do with Russia a thousand times. Pay attention Bianca, it just doesn’t matter one way or another. All that was important is that Trump would stand his ground. Now I/we know that he won’t and that destroys all hope we could have had for the US starting peaceful relations with Russia. Although I have to claim, I never did believe in the phony bastard.

Thomas, here’s what I wanted to post on Raimondo’s column but aren’t allowed to. Would it be alright if I post it here? If not then just delete it o.k?

Well, Raimondo is at least gone back to his old political slant of demonizing the left, polishing up and promoting the political right, and destroying any unity that could be created with both the left and the right coming together for a real antiwar stand. And isn’t it so obviously poisonous now that there’s little difference separating the left and the right in the US. Trump has folded his hand on better relations with Russia and both political parties have their share of hawks and doves. Neither can claim the highroad now but Raimondo still wants to play up the division.

This is an old clip showing admittance of the CIA that they use the mainstream media to manipulate the thoughts and ideas of American citizens in the USA. This has not changed obviously and is good to know happened in the past due to our reality today.

So true friend and now that the Trump scam on friendly relations has been played out and found to be nothing but a scam, the media will show definite signs of pulling in it’s horns tonight on the 6 o’clock news. I’ll watch MSNBC for it but I don’t get Fox. Maybe somebody on this board will keep an eye on Fox?
All disagreements are going to need to be patched up quickly to avoid embarrassment of the CIA, FBI, etc. and Trump.

Check this information out and I have confirmed many times over. December 28, 2016 OUTRAGEOUS: Election hacks traced back to Obama’s Department of Homeland Security

In an unbelievable development that ought to outrage every single American, election officials in Georgia are essentially accusing the Obama administration of attempting to hack into the state’s electronic balloting machines in what appears to be a naked political ploy.

Crispus, if this could be believed as being true then it would be big stuff. Unfortunately, nothing coming out of Georgia can be trusted anymore. And especially anything having to do with Obama because Georgia and it’s politicians are full to the brim with racist hate.

I would like to believe it because it would be another clincher. But really, we don’t need it anyway because the Trump scam/jig is up.

Hmmm… well, they are all paid by the same corporation… and it’s all gone commercial. The men/women “elected” to act in your behalf and have a fiduciary responsibility to do so… yet do not. The answer is no, with a few exceptions which we can discuss further if you like. If one would like to argue the “commercial” point, I would simply refer to 28 USC 3002 (15) and attorneys argue… I do not. Cheers.

Honest Reps and Dems? Come now, shed the cognitive dissonance to find the Truth. Re-publicans have re-established their purposes in order to re-define the definition of public to mean slave (live, cognizant men/women are not part of the public, as it is a legal fiction). Demon-crats are the other side of the same coin. All paid from the same pockets and ultimately all pursuing the same outcome, just from different visible directions (illusion).

I’m loathe to say it, but Michael (aka Michelle) Obama was spot-on with his/her remarks about hope. Hope is nothing more than wishing for an outcome without reasonable supporting evidence to expect that it will occur. Breathe Brother, breathe.

From an “outside the box” perspective the machinations are intriguing. Why do I keep thinking about Joe Walsh: Sometimes, I can’t help but feeling that I’m, living a life of illusion.

Love to be able to second that comrade but unfortunately, it’s all over with Trump. Pay closer attention to the news and the way we/I decipher the short strokes. Trump folded his hand on Assange. You’ll have to read my link I posted for that or go to Huffpost yourself. Nice breasts though!

There are 17 intelligence agencies in the US. That’s 16 too many. There should be just one, its charter strictly limited to gathering foreign intel. No more black ops, coups, drug trafficking, money laundering, etc. Establish an “Old Spies’ Home” for the downsized agents; let them spy on each other.